SHANGHAI, July 27(Xinhua)— The Shanghai municipal government has rolled out an action plan with a total of 100 new measures for further opening up of the city.
The measures focus on five aspects including to further open up and strengthen international corporation in financial sector, to build a more open industrial system, to construct a highland for intellectual property protection, to prompt import with new promotion platforms and to create a top-rated business environment.
-- 90pct of the measures implemented within the end of this year
A total of 14 new regional headquarters of multinational companies have been set up in Shanghai in the first five months of this year, adding up to 639 in total. Business service industry mainly featuring headquarter economy absorbed 2.5 billion U.S. dollars of foreign investment during the period, up 23.7 percent year on year.
Though facing a global economic environment which tends to be complex and volatile, with rising instability and uncertainty, Shanghai strives to fulfill sustained development with high quality by high-end opening-up, shouldering the city’s historic role as a leader in conducting reforms and a pioneer in promoting innovation-driven development.
Zhou Bo, Shanghai’s executive vice mayor, said that the city would take the lead to implement opening-up policies, measures and projects which are approved to be implemented uniformly by China.
"The 100 new measures for Shanghai's expansion and opening up" is an action plan, not an implementation opinion. 90 percent of the measures will be implemented within this year, according to the city’s authorities.
Shanghai will continue to strengthen its advantage as a highly open regional economy and international metropolitan, and need to seek support from the country to implement 34 measures, which account for one third of the total measures, reflecting Shanghai’s braveness and determination to opening-up.
Quan Heng, director of the Institute of World Economy of Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, said that it is Shanghai’s duty to be the pioneer of reform and opening up in China, which will prompt the economic globalization that the world can benefit from. China will never close its open door to the outside world.
-- Serving national strategy highlights Shanghai’s special advantages.
Among the 100 measures, 32 will be implemented to improve the level of Shanghai as an international financial center. Among them, some are detailed practices according to China’s national opening-up measures, such as “remove restrictions on foreign shareholding in banks and asset-management companies, support foreign banks to establish branches and subsidiaries”; some are specialized practices according to the city’s developing advantages in financial sector markets and free trade accounts, such as “support foreign enterprises and investors to partake in Shanghai securities market; amend and improve regulations of listing and the like”.
17 measures will be implemented to build a more open modern service industry and advanced manufacturing industry system , such as "attracting foreign-funded new energy vehicle projects” and further open-up measures in the fields of investment companies, training institutions, value-added telecommunications service, engineering design.
15 measures will be implemented to construct high-standard intellectual property protection environment which connects internal and external environment with unified standards, such as "to unify standards for criminal offences", "to strengthen the public prosecution of intellectual property criminal cases", "to build an overseas base for intellectual property protection in international trade, and set up a trademark overseas rights protection office".
26 measures will be implemented to create a new platform to encourage import from the international market, such as to take the opportunity of hosting the China International Import Expo to promote the innovation of customs affairs guarantee methods, and the normal operation of bonded exhibitions.
10 specific measures will be implemented to create a first-class business environment, highlighting Shanghai's characteristics in the field of business environment reform, such as the management of negative list and management of foreign investment.
All the 100 measures are implementations of China’s commitment to opening up, which are to significantly broaden market access, create more favorable investment environment, strengthen protection of intellectual property rights, and to expand imports, according to Gan Chunhui, deputy director of Shanghai Economist Association.
-- Emphasizing the framework of opening up towards both home and abroad
Shanghai's 100 measures for further opening up are implementations of the national negative list for foreign investment, and also features its own characteristics in opening up.
As complimentary to the “negative list”, these measures attach great importance to business environment construction so as to boost Shanghai's opening up both in hardware facilities and soft environment.
The measures also emphasize integrity of the framework of opening up towards both across the country and all over the world. The action plan emphasizes on equal opening up for not only foreign investors, but private ones as well.
Amy Cai, PricewaterhouseCoopers Chinese mainland & Hong Kong Priority Services Leader based in Shanghai, said that the company will continue to seize the opportunity of Shanghai's opening up in the service sector to push forward talent training programs to help the city to cultivate more talents.
(Contributed by Chen Aiping and He Xinrong, Edited by Ma Xin, maxin11@xinhua.org)
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